1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an inkjet printer for printing images onto a printing medium, by ejecting droplets of a liquid so as to cause them to land on the printing medium and dispose the liquid upon the printing medium, and then curing the liquid so disposed; and a control method for the inkjet printer.
2. Related Art
Inkjet devices that eject droplets of a liquid from an ejection head and cause them to land accurately at chosen positions in order to dispose the liquid in chosen quantities at the chosen positions are known in the art. Such inkjet devices are employed as film-forming devices that, by curing the disposed liquid, can form functional films having exact shapes, detailed images, or the like.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application Publication No. 2003-80687 discloses an electronic component manufacturing device and an electronic component manufacturing method having a step in which ink of adjusted viscosity is ejected from ejection ports of an inkjet head and applied onto a printing material, and some or all of the applied ink is cured before the ink begins to bleed, making possible markings of small alphanumeric characters or symbols.
However, according to the method disclosed in the above mentioned publication, the curing light, such as infrared or the like, which is used for the purpose of curing the ink or other such liquid also irradiates portions other than those requiring irradiation with the curing light. For example, if the vicinity of the ejection ports of the inkjet head is irradiated with the curing light, curing of the liquid may proceed inside the ejection ports, resulting in a loss of ability to eject in proper fashion. Additionally, if the printing medium is irradiated, due to thermal expansion caused by the heat energy supplied by the irradiating curing light, it is possible that only the irradiated portion will deform. It is accordingly preferable to limit the area irradiated by the curing light to the necessary range only.
Japanese Patent No. 3855724 discloses an inkjet printer provided with a linear encoder for acquiring information about a printing section, and UV irradiation range controlling means that, based on position information about the printing section acquired by the linear encoder, controls UV irradiation by UV irradiation means in such a way that the UV irradiation range of the UV irradiation means lies within the range in which the UV ink was ejected, thereby preventing unwanted portions from being irradiated with UV; and a control method for the same.